Author(s)

Ayman Sabry^1,2*, Alaa Ahmed Mohamed^1,3, Mohamed Hassen^1,4

¹Biology Department, Faculty of Science, Taif University, Taif, KSA.
²Cell Biology Department, National Research Center, Dokki, Giza, Egypt.
³Department of Animal Reproduction and AI, National Research Center, Dokki, Giza, Egypt.
⁴Department of Genetics, Faculty of Agriculture, Minufiya University, Al Minufya, Egypt.

Genetic diversity of two chicken ecotypes from Ismailia-Egypt (ISM) and Taif-Saudi Arabia (TA) was evaluated using 39 microsatellites. DNA was extracted from blood of 25 chickens/ecotype. The number of alleles was 157 and 138, the number of alleles/locus averaged 4.2±2.2 and 3.6±1.6, and the highest number of private alleles was 9 and 5 for ISM and TA, respectively. Percentage of shared alleles between the two ecotypes was 45%. This panel of markers is reasonably informative as the mean polymorphic information content for ISM and TA was 0.47±0.21, and 0.41±0.2. Similar average of observed heterozygosity was attained for both ecotypes. Conversely, averages of expected heterozygosity differed between two ecotypes, 0.52±0.23 vs. 0.45±0.21 for ISM and TA. 8 and 12 loci have significantly deviated from HWE of ISM and TA. Estimate of genetic distance was 0.2 and F_ST index was 0.29. Results showed only 6% of genetic diversity is shared between these two ecotypes.

Ecotypes, Genetic Diversity, Microsatellite, Polymorphic Information Content, Hardy Weinberg Expectation

Sabry, A. , Mohamed, A. and Hassen, M. (2021) Genetic Diversity of Indigenous Chicken (Gallus Gallus domesticus) from Ecozones of Egypt and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Open Journal of Applied Sciences, 11, 775-787. doi: 10.4236/ojapps.2021.116057.